01 November, 2015

This Week In Videogames – 01/11/2015

By
Kyle Shimmin

The first of November, as far as I’m concerned we’re now
firmly in the videogame release season, yet somehow those crazy developers keep
on announcing games – back in my day it was E3 or nothing! It’s time for
another week of news.

Two things happened this past Tuesday; firstly, Halo 5:
Guardians, and secondly Sony’s Paris Games Show press conference, and I was
most certainly one hundred per cent ensconced in the former. Speaking of which,
my Halo 5 review should go live within the next couple of days, so check back
to the site for that if you’re interested, anyway let’s run down the Sony
showing.

Double The Rush

In no particular order, we’ll begin with the Gravity Rush 2
gameplay trailer, which you can catch below. In short it looks gorgeous and the
environmental physics, which they describe as destructible, look as if they may
scratch that Resogun particle itch like few games have since. Two different styles
of gravity manipulation are shown, as well as an AI tag-team battle with the
black-clad lady from the announcement art.

Soul Destroying Totems

Uncharted 4’s multiplayer got a reveal trailer, a great deal
of the footage has a terribly scripted look about it, at least in the early
going, but things to pick up in the later sections. I found the part where
Nathan Drake spawned a giant soul-consuming totem/box thing to be particularly
engaging. The multiplayer will run at 60fps which is always appreciated, but it
was later discovered that it will be scaled down to 900p, while the single
player is 1080p at 30fps.

The Saddest, Sickest Trailer Of All

So Avicii the renown electronic jocky of discs is making a game, or at the very least providing the music, which is probably the level of involvement you want from a non-game developer in a game’s development. Vector is a multiplayer music racing game, four player spiltscreen was shown and there will be a singleplayer option. It will feature Avicii’s hits and some “exclusive remixes”, to my eye it looks not dissimilar to Harmonix’s Amplitude. The trailer is mostly the artist; first he’s testing the game and looking solemn, then plays a concert where everyone’s far happier. It’s very informative.

Ripe For Particles

I mentioned PS4 exclusive Resogun earlier in this piece and now it’s more relevant than ever, developer Housemarque unleashed its latest trailer for a brand new game called Matterfall. The video shows a dude in a Dead Space-esque suit, shooting blue exploding gem-like bullets out of his arm at red gem monsters; while it’s not labelled as a cinematic trailer it certainly has the look. I doubt the game will look like anything like the trailer but it paints a relatively clear picture of the type of gameplay we can probably expect, taking Housemarque’s previous work into account.

Five Hundred and Fifty Thousand Polygons

Horizon Zero Dawn’s latest and lengthy video explores its systems in some depth, the gameplay walkthrough is the same footage shown to the press behind closed doors at E3 this year. It still looks utterly beautiful and having the systems shown and described makes it feel real, it doesn’t at all look like abstract concept footage but real gameplay and that’s always a pleasant feeling.

Well I Wonder What This One’s About

David Cage, the face and more of Quantic Dreams announced the studio’s latest title, Detroit. The studio’s games are nothing if not divisive and Detroit, a game that appears to wear its thematic identity squarely on its chest seems very much the same. The trailer screams near-future racial exploitation; it shows a service class of androids clearly being exploited as sub-human utilities. There’s no pretence here, in one scene they are quite literally segregated, confined to standing in the rear section of a train car. It has stunning visuals and a cool albeit well-worn concept if nothing else.

I Know Almost Nothing About NieR, But Platinum…

The NieR sequel announced at the bizarre Square Enix E3 conference received a proper reveal trailer and a name! NieR: Automata, is a third-person action RPG being developed by Platinum Games, and damn does it show, Platinum being the developers behind such titles as Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and the Bayonetta series. I didn’t play the original NieR but this looks like the kind of Platinum action I can get heartily behind, the katana-wielding anime ladies help too.

Why Shoot A Blaster When You Can Fence With It?

Now let’s get back on track with the real videogames that matter, there’s just one; Battlefront. Star Wars: Battlefront doesn’t hit until November 17th, but like Call of Duty it landed an early launch trailer. Unlike Call of Duty, Battlefront has aliens, lots of aliens; Zabrak, Twi’leks, Duros, and more, all cooler than zombies – oh and Stormtroopers, cooler than all of the above. The trailer surveys the planets and many of the gamemodes that Battlefront will feature, the sight that caused me to salivate the hardest, had to be the Executor-class Super Star Destroyer that hung forebodingly in the sky above one of the Sullust maps. It’s basically porn.

I’m Not An Alcoholic

Speaking of Call of Duty, Black Ops III continues to soar
high in the marketing space. Last week I wrote about the Fallout 4 branded beer that the UK will be getting, well Black Ops has done the same in Australia. Call
of Duty: Black Hops III will be available from the 2nd of November,
with six 330ml bottles for $24.99 from BeerBud. The cunningly named beverage is
in fact bottled by Black Hops Brewing, adding layers of meaning to the word play.
The description is surprisingly forthright, “Simply put, they took a Pale Ale
and painted it Black…”

Going To Mobile, Three Words That Make Fans Shudder

But we knew it was going to happen in the case of Titanfall,
Vince Zampella (Respawn Entertainment CEO) has been public enough about such a
future. Now it’s finally true, Respawn has partnered with Nexon, a publisher laser-focused
on free-to-play and mobile titles, to “create several new and original
smartphone and tablet games based on the expansive sci-fi universe of Titanfall.”

The titles will be developed by Particle City, which as
Gamasutra points out is a rebranding of the studio Nuclear Division that Vince
Zampella cofounded, however both Nexon and Respawn have jointly invested in
Particle City. The first game is due to
release on iOS and Android in 2016, Zampella said this about the deal:

“Nexon’s unrivaled publishing network and free-to-play
expertise will allow Titanfall to reach new global audiences. And
with Particle City, we are closely collaborating to create all-new standalone
games with original gameplay experiences that expand the Titanfall universe
to players everywhere.”

Speaking to VentureBeat Zampella also revealed that Nexon is
making a PC-based free-to-play Titanfall game too, which could launch as soon
as 2016, it is being developed in conjunction with Respawn and EA (publisher of
the original Titanfall). No word on a true Titanfall 2 beyond this:

“We continue to focus on Titanfall. Next year is going to be
a very big year for Titanfall,”

Now This Is Pod Racing

Speaking to Gamespot Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg, the head
of global marketing for the games division talked up Halo 5 about as much as
you would expect and then some. Greenberg first described it as, "the most
anticipated game of the year," but he then went on to say this:

"What's really so special about Halo, and people
will feel it the moment they start playing the campaign, is just the richness
of the universe and the story and it's very much like what Star Wars is to
movies, Halo is to games. You have that special sauce--it's unlike
anything else."

So if we run with his analogy a little bit we can see that
Halo 5: Guardians is the second title in the second trilogy, making it the Attack of the
Clones of the franchise. Now I’m not
saying it is a poorly paced rush that ends with a damnable cliff hanger, but I
might say that at least Attack of the Clones actually introduced its new
characters to one degree or another…